Emberverse question

zoomar

To be honest, I lost interest in SM Stirling's Emberverse series after the first 2-3 novels.

But I have a question of fans. I've always thought that a great setting for an emberverse-related story would be on an aircraft carrier or similar US Navy ship that happened to be resting at anchor in a foreign port when the change happened. You'd have a large community of disciplined military personnel based on what amounted to be a ready-made and easily defended floating castle. Since the ship is in a foreign port, there would be little reason for people in the crew to desert to find their families or go all pagan-SCA in Oregon. The aircraft could be ditched and with residences established on the flight deck and opened hanger deck. Waste would just be tossed over the side. Ship's boats and pontoon boats could be adapted for man or sail power and used to explore and raid the adjacent harbor and city for food, supplies, and raw materials for edged weapons. For that matter, steel in the ship itself could be salvaged for that purpose. adjuncts to the ship. I could see something similar happening with other naval vessels that become basically "little USAs" or "Little Frances".
 
theg*ddam*hoi2fan

theg*ddam*hoi2fan

Problem with that, is that a port where there's likely to be a big ship moored is also going to be a major population centre. That being the case... It's going to be a colossal death zone. Starvation, disease, all the joys of a huge city without the tech and resources needed to feed it.
 

zoomar

theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
Problem with that, is that a port where there's likely to be a big ship moored is also going to be a major population centre. That being the case... It's going to be a colossal death zone. Starvation, disease, all the joys of a huge city without the tech and resources needed to feed it.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't necessarily see the ship and its crew attempting to "feed" the city or help its inhabitants at all. Rather, I'd imagine them sending salvage parties and raiding teams ashore only to gather resources and supplies to keep the ships crew alive. If the ship is not docked, per se, but lying at anchor some distance from the shore they may also be able to fish or send raiding parties farther from the city centre into rural areas. I guess my question is this: could a small and disciplined military unit based in a ship that was relatively invulnerable itself to assault survive long enough off resources the crew could obtain from the shore and sea to weather the initial local collapse and eventually create a stable, self-sustaining society centered on the ship with subsidiary "colonies" established and defended on the shore.
 

Sovereign12

The only concern I could see is that it would need to be an America or Wasp class carrier. A Nimitz class has a nuclear reactor, and with no electricity to run the cooling pumps, it could go into meltdown.
 

zoomar

Sovereign12 said:
The only concern I could see is that it would need to be an America or Wasp class carrier. A Nimitz class has a nuclear reactor, and with no electricity to run the cooling pumps, it could go into meltdown.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I actually was thinking of something like a Wasp or America, because it would come with its own largish group of Marines to be the trained sword and club wielding shock troops of this off-shore floating predatory kingdom.
 

Thoresby

zoomar said:
I wouldn't necessarily see the ship and its crew attempting to "feed" the city or help its inhabitants at all. Rather, I'd imagine them sending salvage parties and raiding teams ashore only to gather resources and supplies to keep the ships crew alive. If the ship is not docked, per se, but lying at anchor some distance from the shore they may also be able to fish or send raiding parties farther from the city centre into rural areas. I guess my question is this: could a small and disciplined military unit based in a ship that was relatively invulnerable itself to assault survive long enough off resources the crew could obtain from the shore and sea to weather the initial local collapse and eventually create a stable, self-sustaining society centered on the ship with subsidiary "colonies" established and defended on the shore.
Click to expand...

I doubt it would work out like that. One of the problems is that a aircraft carrier without power is actually a really inconvenient place to be. For example it doesn't have portholes because it weakens the hull so that means being able to use any of the interior spaces requires an enormous amount of lamps and lamp oil, which isn't going to be easily available. Or that while it will have extensive stores of food for clean water the ship will be completely dependent on it's on-board desalination equipment for drinkable water which of course will have stopped working with the Change.

That said a formed, organised military unit based overseas is probably the sort of organisation that has the best chance of survival. If anything survives in Germany (and I think Stirling is too pessimistic with his "everyone dies") it would be cohesive, organised NATO units based there. Not least because they are all sitting on massive stockpiles of food and have ample supplies of trained young men to defend that food until most of the locals have died off.
 

zoomar

Thoresby said:
I doubt it would work out like that. One of the problems is that a aircraft carrier without power is actually a really inconvenient place to be. For example it doesn't have portholes because it weakens the hull so that means being able to use any of the interior spaces requires an enormous amount of lamps and lamp oil, which isn't going to be easily available. Or that while it will have extensive stores of food for clean water the ship will be completely dependent on it's on-board desalination equipment for drinkable water which of course will have stopped working with the Change.
Click to expand...

I speculated a carrier (actually a Wasp class amphibious warfare ship) because it would have a large flight deck, and below that a large hangar with exterior elevator openings. The crew would live and work only on these two decks. Essentially you'd have a densely occupied village with houses on the flight deck made from scrap metal, fabrics, and plastics scavenged from below decks. The ships island would house the leadership caste and serve as "public buildings". The hangar deck would perhaps be less habitable overall, so it would be the work spaces. The interior of the ship would be abandoned completely except for occasional visits to collect imperishable food supplies and raw materials for life on the upper decks. As you observe, maintaining an adequate supply of potable water might be the biggest problem. Using open fires to distill and purify water still works after the Change, right?
 

Thoresby

zoomar said:
I speculated a carrier (actually a Wasp class amphibious warfare ship) because it would have a large flight deck, and below that a large hangar with exterior elevator openings. The crew would live and work only on these two decks. Essentially you'd have a densely occupied village with houses on the flight deck made from scrap metal, fabrics, and plastics scavenged from below decks. The ships island would house the leadership caste and serve as "public buildings". The hangar deck would perhaps be less habitable overall, so it would be the work spaces. The interior of the ship would be abandoned completely except for occasional visits to collect imperishable food supplies and raw materials for life on the upper decks. As you observe, maintaining an adequate supply of potable water might be the biggest problem. Using open fires to distill and purify water still works after the Change, right?
Click to expand...

Yea but it's incredibly inefficient because of the need for massive amounts of fuel. You really are better off on land when you have rivers, wells and most of all space. With 5000 trained personnel you should be able to take over the dockyard and considering most Naval Installations already have some kind of security fences and fortifications you already have the building blocks for a proper fortress. By all means keep the ship as a store and a "Keep" but in the long term it's just not terribly viable. After the initial chaos of the change and when in a few months stores begin to run low you're probably going to want to go in land and find some farmland to take over and set up your new society. Major cities with naval bases tend not to have lots of wheat fields close by.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top